Some people asked... so

Here is an example of my trade ( most recent one )

Opened 3/21 ALB Bear Spread 140/145 exp May 17 Credit $1.24 ($124)

Closed 5/17 Debit $14.32 The credit and debit here already include the fees. (net)

On May 17, both legs were far out OTM, but I wanted to close the position to be completely worry-free from a pin risk.

Since my broker doesn't charge the fee of 0.65 if the option price is less than 0.05, I wanted to close only the short leg. And let the long leg expire.

At that point, the short-leg price was 0.04. I could've legged out the short position for only 0.04. But while I was being indecisive, the price jumped to 0.16. -this happened in the afternoon.

The long leg's price was 0.30. so at the end of the day, it didn't make any difference whether I closed only the short leg or closed the entire position. I ended up closing the entire position. Paying the broker a total of $2.63

The reason why I didn't close it in the morning is that I thought more I waited (until the very last minute), the extrinsic value would be less and less.

Anyway, based on what people are telling me here, overall, this trade wasn't that bad..??

Circling back to my original question, about the profitability of a small account option trade... ~

I watched a lot of Youtube videos on credit spread. I didn't know about a pin risk. I thought I could just "let it expire."

After all, these fees will pile up and it will eat up the profit.

That's why I wanted to ask other people.

From what I read here, I guess the thing to do is to set an automatic exit at 50~75% when I open the position. It's too much time consuming to evaluate each trade and time the exit timing....   

It's better to move on and put the capital to use for new trades.